As you may know, Earth Day is coming up on Monday, April 22nd. But did you know that your cooking and eating habits can also contribute to preserving the Earth too? It’s true!
I mean, think about it. How much food (uncooked, spoiled and leftovers that go uneaten) does your family toss out on trash day? I know that our refrigerator is cleaned out once-a-week on trash day. So, today I want to share with you some tips and leftover recipes that can help reduce the waste of food!!
5 Tips for Reducing Food Waste
1. Cook in bulk and freeze. Cook 5lbs of ground beef or turkey and freeze it in 1lb bags (or the amount your family consumes in one meal). Here is a very helpful list of food that can be frozen and for how long.
2. Freeze Leftovers. Most recipes will re-heat just fine if you freeze the leftovers and save them for a later date. I do this a lot when we have more than we can consume in a day or two.
3. Cook items that can be used in multiple dishes. Chicken is a great example of this! You can cook a whole chicken, de-bone it, use the bones to make chicken stock and divide the meat up for several different dishes.
4. Plan your meals. This takes some time and getting used to on the front-end, but believe me – It’s totally worth it!! Here are some of my meal planning printables that will get you started.
5. Compost your leftovers. Now I have never done this because we don’t have a garden, but I hope to have one some day and a compost pile will be top on the list!! Read more about Compostinghere.
Here is a list of my favorite Freezer and Leftover Recipes!
Leftover Roast Hash
Ham and Hashbrowns ~ great for using up leftover ham
Ham Tettrizini ~ another great one for using up leftover ham
Banana Bread ~ uses up old bananas
French Toast ~ Freeze and then re-heat by slice in the toaster
Breakfast Casserole ~ perfect for using up bread and eggs!
Leftover Turkey Sandwiches ~ I used to love leftover Turkey sandwiches with the turkey from Thanksgiving. Just heat up a little bit of turkey on a plate and add bread, mustard and a slice of cheese!
*Cook several pounds of ground turkey or beef and you can make these options
Tacos/Nachos/Burritos
Taco Soup
Be sure to follow me on Pinterest and check out my Cooking Tips I Need To Know board or any of my FOOD boards for more ideas in the kitchen!!
How do you reduce waste in your kitchen?
Thanks to My Cute Graphics for the graphics used in this post
Happy Wednesday!
Sharing with these linkies: The Chicken-Chick, Couponing & Cooking, An Original Belle, Chef In Training, Growing Home, Women Living Well, Raising Homemakers, Deep Roots At Home, Raising Mighty Arrows, Hearts for Home Blog Hop, What’s Cooking, Love?, Our Simple Country Life – Hearts 4 Home Thursdays, Passionate and Creative Homemaking, House of Hepworths, Comfy in the Kitchen
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